Turkey’s multi-billion-dollar gold sales to neighboring Iran could put the country on a collision course with its close ally, the United States, when high-ranking diplomats from the two countries hold talks in Washington.

As talks to shape Kyrgyzstan’s next government get underway, the United States has fashioned a compromise fuel-supply arrangement that US officials hope will ensure American and NATO access to the Manas transit center outside Bishkek for at least two more years.

A diplomatic tussle between the United States and Pakistan, coupled with a recent series of attacks on fuel tankers destined for coalition facilities in Afghanistan, is refocusing the Pentagon’s attention on the Northern Distribution Network (NDN), a US-NATO supply line running through Central As

There’s a tiny grave near an orphanage on the outskirts of Bishkek. It holds the body of an undersized 2-year-old girl who died in August from complications of a disease that is dangerous, yet often manageable in the United States.

It appears that the US government is resolved to sticking with a competitive tender plan to cover future fuel supplies at the Manas Transit Center in Kyrgyzstan, despite a Kyrgyz provisional government preference to set up a joint venture involving a state-run entity and the Russian-state-run Gazprom conglomerate.

Heading into her September 24 meeting with US President Barack Obama, Kyrgyzstan’s provisional president, Roza Otunbayeva, told EurasiaNet.org in New York that she had a “bouquet of issues” she intended to raise. Sources familiar with US diplomatic thinking, meanwhile, billed the discussions as “a substantial meeting” and “not just a photo op.”

The US Senate Committee on Foreign Relations has approved the nomination of Matthew Bryza as Washington’s ambassador to Azerbaijan, a post that has been vacant for more than a year. Azerbaijani media energetically heralded the committee vote, although most online outlets misinterpreted it to mean that Bryza had been confirmed as the new US envoy to Baku.